STRATEGY IS A KEY TO SUCCESSFUL MARKETING GROUPS – IS YOUR GROUP ON THE BALL?

It is interesting to see the lack of strategy in the Newsagency channel. Remember the good old milk bar? There used to be thousands of them and we all used to be a patron and a customer. What has happened to them? Well due to a lack of organisation, poor marketing strategy and communication, sadly they are all but extinct replaced by more modern robust retailers who engage with their customer not just relying customer service but with positional and promotional marketing, communicating their offer.

If your Newsagency is turning into a $2 shop or relying just on predictable stationery promotions advertising unknown house brands. Is your group leadership team providing you with blue ocean strategy or just making you compete in red oceans? If you are competing in red oceans you need to question your groups and your own business direction. Have a good look at what the competition is doing to your business. National brands are the key to our channels future as well as having the tools and know how to compete.

At a recent ANF Convention the question was posed, if newsagents do not align themselves with a progressive, healthy and evolving marketing group they will end up like Milk Bars.

There are only eight chances for any retailer to differentiate itself from its competitors. The Newsagency retailer has to deliberately choose a unique mix of values and activities which becomes even more powerful if driven by a marketing group, one that is different from its rivals, in order to establish its very own unique competitive position.”

Among the “Eight Ways to Win”, five are based on the 5Ps of marketing – Product, Place, Price, Promotion and People. Called the Pentagon Concepts, they are the features of the retailer that the customer can see, and are the very reasons that customers choose to buy from one retailer and not another. Done right, these elements become the distinguishing hallmarks of successful retailers.

The three other ways in which a retailer can win are in its Triangle Activities – Systems, Suppliers and Logistics – aspects of the retailer usually not seen by the customer but underscoring everything that the retailer offers. These activities provide profit opportunities, and are sometimes even promoted as distinguishing features of the retailer.

In publishing this information we’d also like to acknowledge that we have gained the permission of Lawrence J Ring who along with Douglas Tigert, two US Professors have allowed the publication of this. Newsagents and suppliers could both benefit from the Monash course in Strategic Planning and Management at the Australian Centre for Retail Studies led by Professors Lawrence J Ring and John Strong. See the attached web link for more details:

http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/centres/acrs/prospectus/pdf/2008brochure.pdf